The Ponle Freno public road safety platform (promoted by the Atresmedia Group) and the AXA Foundation presented their Safe and Sustainable Mobility Study on Monday. At the presentation, a ceremony was attended by the Director-General of Traffic, Pere Navarro, who surprised the audience with a curious statement about the perception and satisfaction of drivers Spaniards with radar speed DGT. The majority of citizens do not ask to remove radars. They do not ask for more, Navarro confessed. Satisfied with the DGT radar precisely, the report produced by the Ponle Freno-AXA Study Center collects some data on the opinion that drivers have to some measures of the DGT to combat speeding and reduce accidents on Spanish roads. And one of these data seems to support the theory of the director of the DGT on the number of radars in Spain (about 1,400, between fixed kilometers, section, and mobile radars, like the one in the image).
According to the study, based on the responses of more than 4,000 drivers surveyed, only 23% of drivers believe that the number of radars in Spain is excessive, while 55% (more than half of those surveyed) believe that it is Enough, which would be the same as agreeing to current speed controls. Furthermore, 21% of the drivers questioned (two out of 10) believe that the number of radars installed on the Spanish road network is insufficient, so they would favor increasing controls. The DGT will install 45 more section radars and that is what the DGT has planned to do incorporate 45 new section radars that will be added to the 82 currently existing. The Director-General of Traffic already announced in November last year that his department would buy 75 more kilometers in 2021, including the 45 section radars. Also, the DGT will buy 28 drones (20 for surveillance and eight for training) to be added to the 11 it currently has (three of them with reporting capacity). It is also studying expanding the section on high definition cameras with which it controls whether travelers are wearing seat belts and whether drivers do not use mobile phones (there are now 216 control cameras ).
In favor of Zones 30 in cities other of the most striking results of the Ponle Freno-AXA Study Center report is that a vast majority of respondents ( 62% ) are in favor of limiting speed to 30 km / h in cities, one of the star measures of the DGT to calm urban traffic and reduce the number of people killed in road accidents, especially vulnerable users (pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists). This measure has already been approved by the Government and will take effect on May 11. Support grows to 66% among women surveyed and also among drivers aged between 18 and 34 (the youngest). Only 38% of those surveyed are against lowering the speed limit from 50 to 30 km / h on urban roads with a single lane per the direction of traffic. The percentage of those who oppose grows to 41% among men and reaches 44% among drivers in Madrid. The limitation of the speed to 30 km / h in the city is not an initiative of the DGT, it is the city councils that request it, assured Pere Navarro during his intervention in the presentation of the Safe and Sustainable Mobility Study, carried out between September and October 2020 by Kantar (a company specialized in market studies, research, and analysis) in collaboration with Pons Seguridad Vial.
Safe And Sustainable Mobility Is So Important That It Cannot Be Left To The Dgt Alone, Added Navarro
while praising the work of Ponle Freno and the AXA Foundation for their contribution to road safety. Ponle Freno’s campaigns are invaluable because they are a pressure tool against the administration on behalf of citizens, he explained. The pandemic triggers the use of private vehicles another of the study’s conclusions is that the Covid-19 pandemic has triggered the use of private vehicles (+ 35%) and personal mobility vehicles (+ 18%), while public transport has plummeted (-46 %). The report also reflects that 60% of drivers agree that the use of a mobile phone behind the wheel is a great danger and 21% consider the technological pedestrian dangerous (the one who walks distracted with the mobile phone or headphones connected to a music player).
34% believe cyclists are reckless is also striking that 51% of drivers believe that scooters have increased the risk of a traffic accident and 34% (one in three) consider that bikes are used recklessly. According to the responses of the surveyed drivers, speeding and failing to maintain a safe distance are the most reckless behaviors. But perhaps the most surprising thing about the study is that 54% of drivers do not want to put the environmental label on their vehicles. In fact, more than 70% of the vehicles in Galicia, Aragon, and the Basque Country do not wear it, according to the Ponle Freno and AXA Foundation Safe and Sustainable Mobility Study.
